Santa Lucia

The 13th of December is the Feast of Saint Lucia, known as Luciadagen here in Norway.  I'm not religious, but I enjoy learning about the history behind traditions, so I did a little light reading (this will become a terrible pun in a minute) about Saint Lucia this morning and learned that she was a martyr from the year A.D. 304.  You can learn as much as I now know by checking out wikipedia; naturally, being a figure from so far back in history, the specifics of her life are shadowy.  However, the tradition of her Feast Day is still celebrated in many churches, and there is one particular reason her day is so special here in Scandinavia: we are at the height of the mørktid (dark season), and hers is the Feast of Light.*  As such, it fits in splendidly with everything else I have so far experienced of the Norwegian approach to Juletid (Christmas): yet another day to celebrate light and koseligtid (cozy time… a hybrid word I just sort of made up, but Norwegians love compound words so I think it works) amidst the polar night.  After reading a bit about that, I felt it only appropriate to light a couple candles to her, and enjoy a little early afternoon taknemligness. 

*In addition, Santa Lucia is the patron saint of the blind, and I forgot my glasses when I left for work today… coincidence?? 

By the way, the records in the background are, in fact, two of my new favorite things.  Tyler has orchestrated our second annual record exchange this year.  We decided last year that instead of being a couple that fusses over trying to secretly think of presents for each other, we would just buy each other some records for our joint collection.  This year, being so impractically positioned in the arctic, it made much more sense for one of us to do the picking and the other to do the awestruck opening, for various reasons related to spatial, environmental and monetary thrift.  My present to Tyler was letting him pick, because he is so stoked about it.  I am also really good at opening things and being awed, so it's working out!  I am looking forward to a future year when I can stage an advent calendar of records for Tyler, too, though.  That's also becoming part of the tradition: the fact that we are too impatient to wait until Christmas itself, and have to open some of them as early as Thanksgiving.  It's been many years since I experienced the bottled-up joy of Christmas-morning, and as an adult I would like to proclaim that I actually do think it is more fun not to wait and wait and suffer and wait for one big orgy of newness.  I love opening our presents together a little bit here and a little bit there, making this or that otherwise ho-hum Monday feel like a holiday, too.  It also takes the emphasis off the presents-for-presents-sake, and back into the simpler sharing of warmth and excitement.  It's totally great.

Getting back to Santa Lucia, I have to point out my own irony in constructing an altar out of prized possessions while burning candles in her name.  In one quote I found on wikipedia which is attributed to Ælfric's Lives of Saints, she supposedly proclaimed: "...whatever you give away at death for the Lord's sake you give because you cannot take it with you. Give now to the true Savior, while you are healthy, whatever you intended to give away at your death."  Point taken.  I am no saint in this manner, clearly, but I don't have a lot of stuff.  The fact is that we simply move around too much to accumulate.  Our record collection is slowly snowballing into what will probably become the anchor that ties us to a home.  I rather hope it does, eventually.  But outside of this one fanatical collection of ours, I think my uprooted lifestyle has taught me a little bit about the futility of trying to hold on too tightly to plain old stuff.   I had a storage unit in Portland for a couple years, but sadly much of what was in it literally molded from disuse.  Even my bike, which I loved, and which was still in fine shape, just looked sad not being out in the fresh air.  I sold or gave away most of what I could, and I felt much better knowing that most of those items had been recycled back into the working market of stuff.  I gave away three sleeping bags to a homeless shelter in the process, and that was the moment when I really felt a sense of the necessity of the act: I mean, someone literally needs this warmth, and I was just keeping it in a box for when I maybe needed a spare bag for a camping trip?  Silly.  Not meaning to turn preacher or anything, but I might as well share the revelation, since I only thought to give my old things to a shelter myself because I happened to come upon a sign for a blanket drive while I had a truck-bed full of items to get rid of.  It feels really good to shed that excess, and better to place it where it really fills a need.

Okay, so what's up with these sweet little offerings?  These are known as Lussekatter, a delicious little sweet bun made of enriched dough and dotted with raisins or currants.  These beautiful babies were baked by verdens nordligste baker, aka my boss, this morning and Tyler and I have been happy to try some.  I am going to have to make these at home sometime; they are so pretty!  Ideally, they would be made with saffron; what you can't quite see from my photos is the brilliant yellow color of the dough.  You can also use turmeric as a replacement spice if you purely want to create the color without the expense (which occasionally becomes necessary for, say, a large-ish bakehouse producing more than they make back in revenue at one of their tiniest remote outposts… ah well).

And now here are some further celebrations of that other theme of Santa Lucia day, light!

Frozen candleholder.

One thing I can say about Norwegians is that they really know how to get cozy.  "Kos deg" is one of my favorite phrases in the language, which is essentially a wish that you go cozy yourself.  Awesome.  And one of my favorite things is walking by people's houses and seeing the candles they put out on the doorstep to greet guests.  At one house we passed recently, there were a whole bunch of candles sitting in holders fashioned out of ice blocks, which was both beautiful and ingenious!  I would be very surprised if Martha Stewart has not already featured this somewhere in her magazine. Tyler immediately set to making our own when we arrived home.  Above is a photo of our first attempt, which is quite sweet.  We are in the process of making more, but our experiments in improving the design have only failed, so right now this is still also the best one.  Anyway, if you live in a cold enough climate, try this, it's so pretty!  We just filled an old plastic ice cream container with water, and then suspended another plastic yogurt cup in the center, weighed down with a bit more water just so it floated at a good depth.  We also used tape to anchor it to the side of the larger container and keep it steady until it froze solid, which is the part of the design we keep trying to improve, but yea, this works just fine.

And here are the good, old northern lights:

Our camera is really not fancy enough to capture the magazine-worthy images that some people can get.  But this is pretty good, because it captures about as much of the light as you could see with your naked eye that day.  You have to imagine the light flickering.  It's pretty much unspeakably awesome.  I think the only thing cooler than seeing these overhead would maybe be getting to take a ride on the International Space Station and seeing them from above!  Oh boy, it all starts with a wish...

Astonishingly intricate hand-cut paper star designed by Karen Bit Vejle.

Finally, two photos just in celebration of all this Jule-ness.  Above is a photo of the sweet paper-cut star my mother gifted to me and Tyler before leaving Svalbard.  We are very pleased to enjoy it hanging over our little leiglihet.  Incidentally, if you want another special little shot of Norwegian Christmas culture, check out Reisen til Julestjernen (Journey for the Christmas Star) from 1976.  There are some clips on youtube, including Hanne Krogh singing about the julestjernen.  We watched this film in my Norwegian class last week, which was a pretty great way to practice norsk.

And below is a picture of my first Julekuler: a little knit Julegris (Christmas pig), from the book Julekuler by Arne&Carlos.  This is a great book of patterns for ornaments, and they knit up really quick.  But also, once you get the basic pattern for knitting the spheres, you could easily go wild designing your own color work patterns onto them… which I am naturally day-dreaming of doing for future years, possibly for gifts.  As usual, I am borrowing the book from the local library, and the copy I am using is in Norwegian, so I don't know if it is available in English.  If you know enough about how to read color work patterns, you probably mostly need the pictures anyway.  This one I made on needles that were a bit too big, so the ornament is too heavy to hang on a tree, but that's okay because our apartment is too small to have a tree!  Instead, we've just hung the ornament from the rafters along with the julestar from my mom.  Anyway, that is definitely enough for one day… kos deg!

Sweet little Julegris with a heart for a tummy.

Taknemligdag

"Taknemlig" means thankfulness in Norwegian, and "dag" is the word for day.  So, this year in Svalbard, Tyler and I did not celebrate a traditional American Thanksgiving, we celebrated Taknemligdag.  This chiefly meant that we substituted tyttebær syltetøy for cranberry sauce and a marzipankake for the pumpkin pie.  Also, being an all-vegetarian feast this year, we skipped the whole idea of turkey entirely and made garlic mashed potatoes, rye bread vegetarian stuffing, and a vegetable pot pie (there had to be a pie somewhere on the table) that doubled in function as being a gravy when piled next to the mashed potatoes.  …And the best part was, my mother was here to enjoy it with us!  She also brought with her, all the way from my home shores, a little bag of dried sage out of our dear friend's very own garden.  I'm pretty sure it was the tag-team efforts of family and homegrown sage that lent the day that good, filling holiday feeling.

Grateful for food, grateful for family.

Grateful for a good job!

Grateful for adventure!!  This is my mother after an afternoon of dog-sledding,
pictured with Bamse, who is almost as tall as she is.

Grateful for love.  Me with a sled-dog puppy in my arms.

Svalbard Socks!

A few weeks ago, on one of my lovely Sunday mornings, I made some banana chocolate chip muffins and started knitting a pair of thick socks to wear as boot liners in my good-as-new, free boots.  Now,  I am happily already several days into the rapid process of wearing them out, and I am ready to share the pattern-- the first ever pattern for a knit thing that I have developed myself!  Yay!  Before I get around to the technicalities, can I just say that on a personal level, I consider this a big cause for celebration?  One thing that is totally awesome about getting older is the slow, steady and witless accumulation of knowledge.  Our brains are just snowballs rolling down the hill-- I hardly thought I would ever be able to write something as math-y and arcane as a knitting pattern, but this thing works!  Maybe you can try it, and let me know if there are any adjustments or improvements you would make?  As it is my first one, I imagine there is room for improvement, but I am confident you will come out of this with a hearty, wearable pair of boot socks.

So here they are: Svalbard Socks!!

Quick explanatory note, in case you are the type to closely scrutinize the photos for inconsistencies: yes, the toes of the socks are two different colors, and this was only because I ran out of that grey right before the end of the second sock.  In the pattern notes, I will assume you want a totally polished look, and suggest you continue the toe with the same color.  But you can obviously be as lax with the "rules" as I was, if it serves your supplies.

Second note of full disclosure: I worked out the pattern for the snowflakes over the course of knitting these.  I did not think it really necessary to rip out the first run even though I wasn't quite satisfied with them, so also present in these photos is a slight discrepancy in the final look of the color work pattern.  Here is what they should look like, followed with a close-up of the snowflake I wasn't quite happy with.

Happy snowflakes!

I think the second snowflake here looks more like a tree covered in snow,
because of that strong middle stem.  In my final design,
I broke up the middle line to create a flakier geometry.

Alright, on to the stats…

Size:

• This pattern is for an adult woman's size 8-ish foot, and is meant to fit snugly over a base layer hiking sock.  I use these as boot liners, but you might also find them useful as a comfy pair of slippers, or maybe a Christmas stocking!

Finished Measurements:

• Foot circumference: will comfortably stretch to 26 cm
• Leg circumference: will comfortably stretch to 38 cm at mid-calf

Materials:

• 300 meters/150 grams bulky weight yarn.  I used 3 skeins in 3 colors of Dale Garn Heilo, 100% wool, 22 sts = 4" in recommended gauge on 3-3 1/2 needles-- I give you this manufacturer's information so you can make an informed choice on finding a similar yarn, but note that I went rogue on needle size and am working towards a different gauge than the recommended one.
• 4,0 mm double-pointed needles, 20 cm or longer
• Tapestry needle

Gauge:

• 12 stitches x 18 rows = 8 cm in stockinette stitch

Pattern Notes:

This is a top-down sock pattern, written for 5 double-pointed needles.  You can use circular needles if you prefer.  I recommend knitty.com as a reference tool if you need help with any of the technicalities or basic execution of technique.  I have followed their method of standard abbreviations, as well.

The socks are worked identically for both feet... unless you really, really want to give yourself the work of mirroring the color work pattern, which has been noted at that step in the process.

Cuff:

Cast on 44 stitches in color A (grey), divide onto four needles, and connect in the round to work the second row.

Work in k2, p2 rib for 16 rows. 

Leg:

Work six rows of stockinette stitch in color B (gold), then three rows stockinette in color C (white). Now, we've come to the color work band!

I know there is some simple way to digitize this graph, but I don't really do that.  

Here is my a photo of my hand-drawn color work pattern, meant to be read in the standard fashion (i.e. right to left, each square equalling one stitch as you would knit across the row).  The only element of this that may be more confusing than if I could make a nifty digital graph is that the coloring is opposite-- you knit the dark grey color on the white squares (color A = white blocks) and the white snowflakes on the dark squares (color C = dark squares).  But you are in charge of your life, and so if this is too confusing, you can choose different colors or redraw the graph for yourself in a more logical manner.  Repeat this graph twice around the leg of your socks, so that each sock has four snowflakes on it.

Note for those who want to get fancy and mirror things: on the second foot, start in the middle of the graph with the second snowflake and rebound to the beginning, so that you knit the snowflakes in opposite order.  BUT: oh my gosh, don't sweat it if that sounds too loopy.  I like to take Elizabeth Zimmerman's advice from Knitting Without Tears when she basically said that if you aren't finding the knitting experience relaxing, you might want to reconsider what you're doing with your time.  No one will notice if you knit the socks identically or mirrored, or if you mess up a lot on the way to either result… It's no biggee, as we tried to say nonchalantly in middle school.

Continuing on with the leg:

Knit three rows of stockinette stitch in color C, stopping before the last two stitches of the third row.  K2tog.  This is the first of 4 reductions you make on the leg; you now have 39 stitches.

Knit three rows color B, then three rows color C.  Again, on the last two stitches of the last row of color C, k2tog.  Repeat this striping pattern twice more, so that you have three stripes of color B and are working on the fourth stripe of color C.  Once you repeat the final reduction at the end of the fourth stripe of color C, you should have 40 stitches on your needles.  Work three more rows in color B.

Heel:

Work 10 stitches across in color A, then turn to begin the heel (knitting those ten stitches across first just lines up the "seam" of where you have been switching between colors along the back of the calf, which I find aesthetically more pleasing than if the seam were to end up sort of randomly along the side of the leg).

Purl 20 stitches across on the work side.  These are your heel stitches, and the other 20 stitches you are holding on your other needles will just hang out and whistle a tune for a while until we're ready to pick them back up.

Turn work.  Slip the first stitch, then work the row k1, slip1 to end.  You should end on a k1.

Turn work and repeat these two rows thirteen times more, ending on a right side row.

Now, the heel turn…  

Next row: Turn work and purl 13 stitches, p2tog, p1, turn.

Next row: Slip 1, k5, k2tog, k1, turn.

Next row: Slip 1, purl until one stitch before the gap (this gap was created where you k2tog in the last row), p2tog, p1, turn.

Next row: Slip 1, knit until one stitch before the gap (created where you p2tog'd in the last row), k2tog, k1, turn.

Repeat the last two rows until all stitches have been worked.  You should now have 10 heel stitches.

Gusset:

Pick up and knit 13 stitches from the slipped stitches along the side of the heel with color B.  Continue in stockinette along the 20 stitches you have been holding for the top of the foot, and then Pick up and knit 13 stitches along the other side of the heel.  Knit across the 10 stitches of the heel.  You should have 56 stitches. 

As you knit the gusset, you will do a double reduction every other row as follows:

Next row: Knit to the last three stitches on the first side of the heel, k2tog, k1.  Knit across the top of the foot.  K1, ssk, then knit around to the end of the row.

Next row: Knit all.  

Repeat these two rows until you have only 40 stitches left.  At the same time, you can continue to alternate between color B and color C every three rows, to create the striping pattern.  If it helps to check your work, this will mean that the reductions fall on the second row of every stripe of color B and the first and third rows of the every stripe of color C.

Foot:

In simplest terms, knit in stockinette for 21 more rows, or until your work measures about 4 cm less than the desired length.  For the exactitudes of my striping pattern, follow:

Knit three rows color C, three rows color B, three rows color 3, 6 rows color B, 3 rows color A.

Toe:

Now you are working in color A, and you need to do a quadruple reduction every other row.  Make sure your needles are divided evenly onto four needles, and follow the (ha!) following:

First round:

1. Needle 1: Knit to the last three stitches, k2tog, k1
2. Needle 2: K1, ssk, knit to the end
3. Needle 3: Knit to the last three stitches, k2tog, k1
4. Needle 4: K1, ssl, knit to the end

Next round: Knit all stitches.

Repeat those two rounds until you have only 20 stitches left.  Divide the stitches so they line up parallel on two needles.  Cut the yarn, leaving a good long tail  to sew with (about 18 inches, in my American memory, maybe 50 cm in my new European world of measures?).  Break out the tapestry needle, and kitchener stitch to close!  If you need an explanation of kitchener stitch, I refer you again to knitty.com, for their wonderful, clear instructions.  And incidentally, if you don't already know what magic kitchener stitch is, you really should try it!  It's a magically seamless seam, making it look like you've never even been there.  Amazing.

Anyway, there you have it!  Svalbard socks!

My two-toned toes.

And at work keeping my toes warm.

And not a moment too soon.  Take a look at how Tyler captured the beautiful moonscape over what is now officially the polar night...

Frozen Beach

Frozen Rope.

Frozen Jellyfish (with man-sized hand for comparison)

Frozen Jellyfish.

Dress-Dreamin'

OOOOhhh, how I want to make a beautiful dress.  Here is my situation as a seamstress: I want to sew absolutely everything I wear, and never shop again.  BUT, I have not yet learned how to sew a darn thing meant for the human form.  How have I gotten to the age of almost-thirty without acquiring these skills?  I have no idea.  I was sewing clothing for my Barbie dolls when I was a kid; I remember sitting on a lounge chair on the back deck of a cottage in Maine and trying not to drop the pins between the floorboards onto the pine-needle carpet below.  I remember licking the end of the thread and twisting it to ease it through the eye of the needle.  I remember getting frustrated that I didn't understand exactly how all the parts of something should go together to make something flat into something 3-D.  And then I remember my Mom telling me that sewing is not something you should do when you're tired.  "Why?" I asked her, truly baffled.  Sewing looked so simple-- you sit there with a little thing in your hand, whip the thread through some loops, cinch it up--tada!  Clothing.  Birds and mice make ball-gowns practically by floating around the space of a dress form in Disney movies.  Why should sewing things, and especially small things, be difficult?  Or even take very long?  To this, my Mom answered simply that small things like Barbie clothes were, to the contrary, much harder than regular, people-sized things.  I remained mystified, but eventually ceded to her suggestion that sewing was not for when you are tired.

Since that day, I have been tired or something like it for about twenty years!  And in the meantime, I have settled for a lot of not-quite-what-I-really-meant off-the-rack clothes, and resorted to charmingly childish fixes for my tailoring needs.  Ten years ago, I found a fantastic vintage aqua blue Liz Claiborne dress for $3 at a Goodwill.  I cut the horrible shoulder pads out no problem, but then the sleeves ballooned in a bit of a funny way without the support, so I twisted them a bit, turned them under, and pinned them in place with safety pins.  They looked so cute and blousy!  I always meant to sew them properly, but was also a little afraid to make my alteration more permanent, lest I fumble it.  I still have that dress, but sadly know the fabric itself has suffered under my care.  Someday when I am not living in one polar extreme or other, I will unpack that dress from storage and make something new from what workable fabric remains.  Maybe I can make a blouse that fits properly.

On the other end of things, here is the situation in my closet: the current contents could fit into a backpack and come with me around the world.  Awesome!  Living like a snail: a former goal realized.  Sparse living has some real benefits, namely the simplicity of a limited wardrobe, and the satisfaction of using everything I have.  Also, polar latitudes generally maintain slim sartorial margins for the entire community, so there is little in the way of social pressure to stand out.  For exactly these reasons, however, I sometimes find I can get an enormous lift out of the simplest fashion-related frill.  I found a lavendar wool pencil skirt at the Bruktikken the other day which has been in high rotation lately.  It makes me feel like I am breaking some kind of rule, my knees braving the elements with only a thin layer of long underwear between them and the polar wind.  I enjoy these little rebellions of personality amidst my otherwise strictly functional wardrobe, but function always wins in the end.  On an especially blustery day, I will be wearing my snowsuit and my Ugly Duckling bright yellow wind layer, and that is that.  And these practical clothes take a beating with so much repeat wear.  When Tyler and I completed our twelve month stretch in Antarctica, literally every piece of my clothing had holes in it.  Do you believe I am still using the same distressed cardigan that saw me through that long year down south?  I am.  It still keeps me warm.  At least it's not in a landfill.

But someday, I will be back in a land of moderate climate and the variety that comes with it, and I am so looking forward to having more of the fun of clothing back in my life!  If possible, I would like to jump straight to the fun of wearing the things, and bypass the gruesome ordeal of shopping.  Thus, my plan is to use some of my quiet, arctic winter days to begin fussing with some fabric and patterns and see if I can learn some new skills.  In this spirit, I recently ordered some outrageously beautiful fabric:

 It's a Liberty cotton lawn, which is to say that it is sumptuously soft and richly colored.  I saw this fabric for the first time in a shop in Portland, OR about three years ago, at which point I really couldn't afford it.  And then, thanks to the internet, I found it again!  I have a very clear idea in my head of what it will be someday, but I have not yet found a pattern approximating that image.  Perhaps it will wait another three years until I have acquired some drafting skills and can design the dress of my dreams.  This is okay, as it might be about that long before I have a good occasion to wear the dress of my dreams.  In the meantime, I am downloading a different dress pattern, and using an old sheet from the Bruktikken to make my very first muslin for my very first dress, which will eventually be made out of some slightly less precious fabric.  I really hope this turns out to be a story of triumphs; but one cannot triumph if there is no struggle to overcome, so I also anticipate a steep learning curve at various points... wish me luck!

Waning Daylight

 The other day, my mother asked me how much daylight we still had each day.  I said I thought we still had sunlight between 7 am and 7pm every day, but now that I am paying attention, I know that I had already totally lost track of the progression of things.  The sun didn't quite make it over the eastern mountain peaks to light the other side of Isfjørden until 9 am today, at which moment my boss called me over to the window to look at the lovely scene, and I watched the reverse happen tonight at about 5:30 pm. As it gets darker, waking up early for work becomes harder, of course; but the consolation is in being one of the few to see the slow, extended sunrise.  Lately, on clear days, they look like this:

Some days, of course, aren't as brilliant, but many are.  At Bakehuset, we are blessed with several massive windows overlooking the ISS building and it's brilliant beyond.  The machine where we clean our sheet trays is super old and noisy; Petter warned me when I started working to put ear protection on or it would sound like the grinding was inside my head.  But the machine is also right next to the window, so sometimes when the world is especially beautiful outside, I put on the earmuffs and feed some trays through the machine and stare at the mountains and feel lucky, even despite that wretched, mechanical whine.

Outside of work, there is also lots of time for contemplating the beautiful.  One of my favorite ways is just by sitting at the table in our cozy little house, working on tiny sewing projects and glancing out at the changing light.  As far as the sewing goes, I have a few more ambitious things planned, but for those I need to gather supplies and work out some realistic goals.  I started by purchasing just basic needles and the only thread I could find in town (polyester, amazingly, instead of cotton... no idea why, but I got red because why not), along with an iron and an extremely mini ironing board.  Maybe I should take a photo of that for one of these posts, it's really funny!  Anyway, after the success if my innesko recycling effort, I decided to do another simple sewing experiment with some repurposed fabric to make some napkins for our sweet little kitchen table.  Fancy, shmancy white linen napkins, nonetheless!

Posing with a bowl of apple fennel cabbage salad... yum!

Inside the hem.  These are very handmade, no secrets here.

The fabric came from a white linen summer skirt that I found at the ever-awesome Bruktikken.  I was on the fence about whether this project was going to count as truly worthy repurposing, or would fall short of that into the cutting-up-useful-items-to-make-smaller-items category of the less-than-earth-friendly.  But two things finally swayed my choice: some slight stains on the skirt meant that while it wasn't unwearable, it certainly wasn't going to be anyone's dream find, and the fact that it was a summer skirt lying at the bottom of a bin of clothing in Longyearbyen, Svalbard on the eve of mørktid... well.  It will be many months before anyone finds an appropriate venue for wearing a white linen skirt up here, and by then it may have been so scuffled and jumbled among the other clothes in the bins that it won't be much of a looker.  So.  Linen napkins for us!  (I am hoping to find a use for the bit of leftover fabric I have from the lining of the skirt-- it's only some cheap chintzy stuff, but it might be useful for making a mock-up of something or using as a liner layer for something else.)

These napkins were really easy to sew up, of course-- linen presses so nicely, so I just cut out squares (fun fact: I used the copy of Annemarie Sundbø's Norsk Vottar og Vontar I still have out from the library to trace for my square), pressed double-folded hems and sewed them down with a running stitch of red thread to give a little character.  And also because I bought red thread, like I said.  No hiding that stuff on a white field...  The final size of the napkins is pretty small for a table napkin-- it doesn't really cover your lap, so it wouldn't pass in a fancy restaurant after all.  But they are big enough to be functional, and they look rather sweet.  They make me think of tea-time actually, which might be why I suddenly wanted to make scones one Sunday morning.  

Lemon scones with blackberry jam.

Just about a week ago, things really started getting colder out here.  The river of glacial meltwater that runs through town is dwindling and starting to freeze:

Even so, last week it still looked like this around here: 

But this week, we got our first real snow, and just like that, everything is white:

White beach.

Brushing off snow after a walk through the big, fat flakes.

A fat little sandpiper...

The sandpipers are still flitting about the shore, despite the crust of ice on the sand above the tidal line.  Tyler keeps reminding them they better think about flying soon.  They are eating and eating like crazy, getting ready to fly their chubby little selves back to the fastlandet.  We spied some late-lingering barnacle geese through the snowfall the other evening, so there are still a few birds to make the journey south.  My hunkering down, therefore, continues in earnest.  Tomorrow I will be going to the Bruktikken again, this time on a mission to rustle up some fleece layers for my legs, maybe some socks or a hat or ski mask, man-sized anything for Tyler, etc.  So far, I am going remarkably well compiling a functional winter outfit without actually buying any Gear.  I wonder how far I can make it... all the way???  Fingers crossed!  The next thing on my knitting needles is a pair of thick, wool liners for inside the boots I also got for free from the Bruktikken... so more on that soon!

Goodbye Geese, Hello Winter

Yesterday, Tyler spotted a flock of geese flying south.  We've noticed some small groups of geese practicing their V-formations, but this one looked... different.  They were in earnest.  And there were so many of them; a long line that snaked a bit while we watched them fade into the distance beyond one of the mountains.  Like a wispy trail of smoke... A few minutes later, another group flew over ahead, and then another.  I had the distinct feeling that I should probably go pack my things if I was going to catch the last train out of town...

But retreat was never part of our plan.  Instead, I walked home with a new set to my shoulders and a firmness in my gate; I felt resolved, as though I'd agreed to be the one to keep an eye on things until the geese return.  And winter is coming soon... Those birds definitely have an uncanny sense of timing.  I'll be darned if we didn't wake up this morning to frost on the rooftops, the puddles all frozen and smashed to shards where cars had driven over them.  And this evening, I walked home from my Norwegian class in the blue light of a gentle snowfall, and almost slipped on a slick spot beneath the fresh white dusting on the road.  I need: a warmer hat, and thick socks for inside my boots. Better get knitting quick!

Images of the approaching darkness...

The glacier glistening in the moonlight.

Sea-shore surprises.

Yesterday evening, I was pulled away from the table, where I was listening to some radio and sewing a pincushion, by the lovely purple light that was coming through the window.  Not a spectacular sunset, like the one I posted a couple days ago, but a very muted lovely late-evening twilight peering around some clouds on the horizon.  I walked down to the shore, and was surprised to find these lovely scallops.  They all have such fancy hats on!  I don't know that I've ever seen bigger barnacles.  It was amazing how the red and pink and purple colors of the shells and the seaweed were glowing through this evening light... there was a rusty-red jellyfish washed up on shore that was still pulsing, which was both a bit creepy but also fascinating.  And then a juvenile glaucous gull came over and tried to see what I was up to.  He was kind enough to pose for a picture before waddling on... And to think this bit of ocean will be frozen over in a few months time, it's really quite astonishing.  I have to remind myself that there are seals and whales and fish and crabs and coral and sponges and all kinds of things living out there... and they don't migrate for winter, they just find a way to deal with it!  How truly amazing. 

The colors of fall...

Blue: The harbor on a Saturday morning bike ride.

Silver: Rain-slick roadway.

Yellow: Grass, with some late-summer puffballs wilting in the rain.

I thought that I would be missing fall, around here.  I haven't had a proper New England fall, with apple cider and red maple leaves and Halloween in... years!  My last few falls have been spent either in rainy Portland, OR or frozen Ross Island, Antarctica.  At some point in the season, I usually decide I feel a little nostalgic for the benchmark moments of autumn as I remember them from my youth.  But this year, surprisingly, Svalbard is delivering them to me in subtle new ways!  There are crops of mushrooms growing all along the hillsides around town.  So far, I haven't remembered to take the camera along and photograph them, but there is a huge variety of mushrooms for a small area-- and the browns and whites and blush-reds of them are as good as an autumn leaf-pile any day.  The entire landscape is also changing quietly-- the grasses are changing color from green to rusty orange and yellow, and as I look across the valley I see the same sea of autumn colors that I would once have spied from the Hundred-Mile View on Hogback Mountain, VT.  The difference is that the color spreads more like a moss across the entire landscape, instead of puffing and bursting from individual tree-tops.  And I can also view this color-scape right from sea-level, instead of having to climb to the mountain-top to get the whole spread within my sight-lines.  Tyler and I started our Sunday morning today with a lovely walk past the dog yards, where there is usually some great bird-watching.  The last hold-outs of the season are still around: barnacle geese, purple sandpipers, terns and glaucous gulls... no doubt, most of them will soon be headed south.  The sun is low on the horizon, and the shadows fall longer every day... I can't wait to see the colors of winter!  White snowscapes under blue moonlight, and ghostly green auroras... cozy firelight... it's all coming soon!

Innesko: Part 2, A Bruktikken Success Story!

Remember these?  Well, I have more to say about them.

They also have red leather soles!!!

In my last post, I gave you the story of why it felt important (pun intended!) to have a pair of innesko for the coming winter in arctic Norway.  Winter is coming, by the way... woke up to the first proper dusting of snow this morning!  Lovely.  Much has melted off during the course of the day, but not all.  Anyway, soon enough, we will be in all white, and I will be sporting my innesko a lot, enjoying cozy indoor activities.  I wanted to make sure my innesko would last a little longer than the first few weeks of the season, so I knew I wanted to give them some leather soles if possible.  ...But how could I make that possible?

Well, again, I could have tried to search for a piece of hide for sale.  Skinnbode would be the local go-to for buying seal skin, reindeer pelts, or an entire musk-ox with horns and skull cap if you like... but this was about not buying things outright where possible (not to mention the prices are a bit out of my range, even working at Norwegian wages).  SO.  Could I hunt down my own prey, tan the hide, and make the soles from that?  The unsurprising answer is: sorry, no.  Certainly not in time for that fast-coming winter, and probably not personally for a lot longer than that.  One could do those things here in Svalbard, it must be said, but I am ill-equipped and ill-inclined towards such an endeavor.  Besides which, lining the bottom of a pair of slippers seems a flimsy excuse for shooting and killing an entire animal.  Surely, the respectable hunter would also be feasting on the meat, maybe using the antlers for something clever, and tanning and treasuring the hide for more than just a couple scrap pieces of leather for trodding on.

So what is a good piece of leather to use for scrap?  How about a piece of leather that was going to end up in the garbage?  Like this here lonely leather glove, missing it's mate and a bit worn in the finger tips anyway...

For a sad little glove, she's got a lovely hue!!

This little baby came straight out of my first shift at the Bruktikken, Longyearbyen's treasure trove.   When I first arrived in Svalbard in early June, temperatures were still a bit crisp with spring chill, and Tyler and I were heading out on an eleven day expedition around the wilds of the archipelago by ship.  I expected that I would need a decent pair of waterproof, warm pants, but did not have any in my thriftily packed bag.  I was reluctant to spring for a new pair of waterproof bibs for nothing less than 3000NOK (roughly $500USD) partly because the price was steep in comparison to my wallet, but also because, as I explained in my last post, I had no idea if I was just going to want to unload them eleven days later when I got off the boat (the bakery job, with it's paycheck and promise of several more months in an arctic climate, were still only hazy loomings in the future).  Anyway, imagining that there might be other travelers who had fallen into such a trap themselves and then had wanted to unload their basically-new outdoor gear, I started asking around at the hotels to see if anyone had left behind a pair of waterproof pants, maybe in my size, which the kind person working as a desk clerk might just like to gift to me, a shameless mooch of a tourist.  ...Uh, yea right.  BUT!  It never hurts to ask!  One kind man did do me the honor of not immediately judging me a lunatic, and let me in on a local secret: there is a little grey shack in downtown Svalbard where you can go to hunt through bins and bins of other people's unwanted things, and take them away to a new home for free.  Not just tax-free, totally free... I found it, and they had snow pants!  A little bit big, but warm and cozy nonetheless.  

Ever since I first found the Bruktikken, it has been my one-stop shop for all our little hopes and dreams.  I also scored an immersion blender, to Tyler's delight, which has resulted in the making of some scratch curry pastes and other delights to which I am thrilled to be a party to.  But my red innesko soles are my personal favorite score to date.  First of all, there is the basic fun of getting something you need easily, and for free.  Second, how perfect is that color with that little bit of red in my innesko???  I couldn't have matched it better if I had ordered swatches off the Internet.  Chance wins again!  Merce Cunningham and John Cage would be so pleased!

But I really do especially love the third point in my list of awesome: this glove was otherwise basically only fit for the trash bin.  And now it has a second life!  I can't save all unloved things that come into the Bruktikken, but saving a thing here or there feels nice.  It's a great reminder of what is possible when you just stop and think "wait a second... what can be done, here?"  I am so tickled by the success of this venture, and I am really excited to think of other ways I can use the Bruktikken not only as my personal free-stuff boutique, but my personal free craft-supplier.  More stories will hopefully follow in the coming months; but for now, let's look at what I did with the glove:

Time for a makeover, sad little glove.

First, I unpicked all the seams.  This was made possible by a seam-ripper I found inexplicably included in a random box of tools in my pastry area at the bakery.  I don't know how that will ever come in handy at work, but boy am I glad to have it at home!  Unpicking the seams is not only pretty fun, it also yields a much broader volume of material when you unfurl hems and un-cinch elastic to reveal the broad, flat original pieces of the item.

Flat feet.

Then, I placed the innesko on top of the two largest pieces of leather I salvaged and traced around the outer sole.  When I cut the pieces out, I added a generous quarter-inch seam allowance all the way around. When I sewed them on my innesko, I gently rolled this under before sewing down the soles with a somewhat barbaric-looking primitive catch-stitch.  I am not ashamed; sewing through leather by hand is hard enough without perfection on the brain.

And after that, I took a look at my scraps and thought, surely there is something I can do with this other than throw it all out...

Something of a dream come true in only fifty minutes...

 Ah-hah!  I made myself some leather thimbles I have been coveting for quite a while.  Leather is a perfect material for a thimble, because you can still feel what you are doing in your fingertips through the material, but you stand some protection from sudden needle jabs and so on.  These two little thimbles are for my index finger and thumb, and I also cut a little rectangle from another bit of scrap just to use as a gripping aid, should I decide to use my metal thimble for anything, and need a little tool to grip the needle in when trying to pull it through while stitching.  I find the entire aesthetic of handwork incredibly charming, right down to the tools, but I have never before had tools for handwork that I made by hand!  I am so pleased.  That said, I didn't think through the design in a very complex way, and having the seam run right along the fingertip on that one thimble is proving to be problematic, as the needle sometimes jabs backwards right between the stitching.  But there is someone else who has thought this through extremely well-- this is the pattern I will try if I decide to go back and redo this little mini-project (and hey, guess what! she even recommends using a sad, lonely glove for your scrap leather!).

Finally, look what was waiting for me outside when I finally looked up from the table:

Oh, thank you, Earth.